'Oh, put 'em all in,' said Kif tolerantly, and watched in secret amusement while the gaudy object grew momentarily more gaudy. A large content possessed him. The present was good, the immediate future was better, and afterwards, when he was back in France, there would be Tim—Tim who was at present in hospital in Scotland. It was strange how his heart lightened at the thought of being with Tim again. In those first chaotic days in hospital it had been, not the missives from Golder's Green, but the first sight of Tim's neat small script on an envelope that had given him the most acute pleasure.
'I can't tell you what a relief it was,' Tim had written, 'to have the news of your whereabouts from home. The second line at La Boiselle was such a mess when I saw it last that I began to think I was the only one out of the bunch left. Jimmy has gone west. I saw him when they were bringing me down. Do you ever think what those early days at the depôt would have been without Jimmy?…They asked me, coming across, where I should like to be nursed back to health and strength, and I said: "Oh, thanks very much. It's awfully good of you to consider the matter. If it's all the same to you I should like to be as near London as possible." And much touched and comforted by such evidence of consideration for the feelings of a poor private I went to sleep. And I woke up in Aberdeen. At first I wasn't fit to speak to, but after a day or two I got over the shock, and now I am enjoying myself immensely. Buck up and get better, old boy, so that we can have another leave together in London. If you want books or food or anything, do ask Mother for them. She will be dying to do something for you and will be delighted to find an outlet for her energies.'
Golder's Green had indeed been prodigal in providing for his comfort, but the general hospital that housed him had been in Leeds, and he had consequently seen nothing of the Barclay family since he had stayed with them a year ago. Now, as he arranged the wools, he let his mind play pleasantly with the thought of seeing them all again.
'What an industrious pair!' said a quiet voice, and the commandant sat down beside them, restraining with a movement their embryonic effort to rise. She was a little elderly woman whose fine-boned face and hands belonged to an eighteenth-century miniature, and whose quiet talk was as full of modern slang as it was of raciness and point. The contrast between her appearance and her personality—only a little humorous twist of her small mouth gave the lie to her looks—gave her a piquancy that made her unique. To talk to her was like eating salt and sweet together, or finding a hot dish in the middle of an iced one. Her neat black clothes were tailored in Bond Street, and she was rumoured to be one of the four best judges of a horse in Britain. Her only child—a major in a line regiment—had been killed on the Aisne. At his death she had turned her home into an auxiliary hospital of which she was commandant. But it was characteristic of her that she was more often to be found talking to the patients than sitting in state in her office.
'I say it is for the good of my soul,' she would explain to inspecting colonels, 'but really it is a flight from the boredom of being a figure-head. Everyone of my staff knows more about nursing than I do, and my secretary knows more about the business side, and yet they will never talk to me as man to man. I am merely the awful object on the prow that they say their prayers to. So I sneak away where I can talk to my equals for a bit.'
She hardly ever talked to a man with whom she did not find something in common. To Kif she talked of horses and dogs, of London, of racing, of cabbages and kings. She liked the dark youth with the unhurried ways—Kif, even in the immobility of weakness, managed to convey more of quiet in his demeanour than did his fellows—and when occasionally his eyes slid laughing round to her after one of her remarks she had always a disproportionate sense of pleasure.
To her girl chauffeur she said one day: 'Why are privates so much more worth talking to than cabinet ministers?'
'Give it up,' said the girl, who was also her cousin. 'Perhaps it is because they haven't a microphone inside them,' and the old lady had laughed.
Kif was certainly not out to impress anyone. He was habitually unselfconscious and natural.
To-day she asked him what he proposed to do when the war was over. He was on the point of telling her what he had told Ann of his ideal occupation, but contented himself with:
'Something in London.'
'If you are so keen on horses, wouldn't you like to work in a racing stable?'
'Well, you see, I weigh nearly eleven stone, and I wouldn't like just to—' he hesitated.
'Yes, I see. There wouldn't be much hope of promotion for you. I had no idea that you were as heavy as that. You don't look it just now.'
'No, I'm a bantam weight at the moment.'
'Are you a boxer?'
'No. I've always wanted to learn, but I haven't had the chance so far. Perhaps it won't be too late when the war's over. Our captain—Heaton—was a nib.'
'Heaton?'
'Yes, the jockey, you know.'
'Good heavens! was Murray Heaton your captain? The really incredible minuteness of the world! And what was Murray like as a military despot? Very Prussian?'
'One of the best.'
'Oh? You liked him?…Did they all like him?' She was looking at him with a frank and amused curiosity.
'Yes,' said Kif simply; but he made a little movement with his head which emphasised the monosyllable to a superlative.
'Why? What was so fascinating about Murray?'
'I don't know,' said Kif, not having consciously looked for reasons for his captain's excellence. 'He never fussed, somehow, but he always got things done.'
'No,' she agreed. 'No, he wouldn't fuss. We used to tease him in the old days by saying that instead of a text above his bed he had the motto "You mind your business and I'll mind mine". I have known him ever since he was a small boy. His father and my brother were great friends, and Murray rode a lot for my brother before he started training for himself…And so Murray is popular? And as stunningly efficient as ever, of course? Does he still look as if nothing in the world affected him, and then give the show away by fiddling with his hat?'
Kif watched a picture with his mind's eye for a moment.
'Yes,' he laughed, 'he takes it off a wee bit and settles it differently.'
'And then puts it back the way it was. I know. Well, he had a wonderful way with horses. Perhaps it is the same with humans—in spite of his alleged motto.'
Kif had a sudden desire to tell her the story of Heaton and the corporal—how she would delight in it!—but the presence of his fellow-convalescent restrained him. He would save it up for a time when he was talking to her alone.
'I think, you know,' she said later, when she was taking her departure, 'that even if he reached the cabinet, Murray Heaton might be worth talking to.' A remark which passed over Kif's head, since he was wondering at the queerness of the fact that someone who took Murray Heaton as a matter of course—almost!—should sit by his side and be chummy like that.
When she had gone his companion began immediately to patronise him, because in the piping times of peace he had seen Murray Heaton ride and Kif had not. But for each exploit of Heaton's on the racecourse Kif produced a more thrilling one in France, and this amiable competition was in full swing when a nurse came down the path to them with a letter in her hand.
'I think you must be the only two men who don't hang round the hall at post-times,' she said, Has your girl given you up, Knight?'
Knight, who, as everyone knew—he produced their photographs at the slightest provocation—had a buxom wife and four children, grinned and smoothed the finished golliwog approvingly, and the nurse handed the letter to Kif.
'If it had been a girl's writing I would have stuck it on the board and let you find it. You dance much too well for me to let you go without a struggle,' she said, and turned to receive the golliwog from the proud author.
Serenely diplomatic, she admired the motley atrocity, and as she turned to go her eye encountered Kif's with a sense of shock. So this was what that quiet boy was like!
/> 'He's sorry he hadn't any more colours, Sister, or he'd have put them in,' Kif said.
'You wait!' she said. 'To-morrow I shall say that your foot is not well enough for you to dance!'
The letter was from Tim.
'Dear Kif (he wrote), 'I came home last Friday night, free at last from their beastly electric baths and things. My leg is as good as ever it was. I can't even get up a limp that might wangle a longer leave for me. They probably wouldn't believe me, in any case. Unimpressionable collection of hard cases, army doctors! The mater has elected to take the whole family to the Isle of Wight for the duration of my leave. If you are out before we come back, and would like the place, follow on. But I am going down to Derbyshire to-morrow to see the grandmother, and I'm quite determined to do the extra journey and drop in at Laythwaite. Partly because I'm dying to see you and I have a sneaking suspicion that even if you are free in time the Isle of Wight wouldn't be your idea of a leave, but mostly because I want to have a good yarn with you. Expect me on Wednesday.'
Kif thumbed the hand-made paper thoughtfully. He could read quite distinctly the thing that was not written. Barclay was coming to say something that he could not write. What was it?
A little chilly wind scudded suddenly round the corner. It had an edge to it that mocked at the weak but valiant sun.
What was it that Tim had to say? He considered various possibilities. Perhaps he had got engaged. But he wouldn't come in person to tell him that. He would have been entirely off-hand about it. He had a queer feeling that it was going to be unwelcome to him, this that Tim was going to talk about. And having made up his mind on that point he quite characteristically dismissed the thing deliberately from his thoughts. There were still two days in which he could be blissfully ignorant. And anyhow he was going to see Tim again after many months, and nothing could alter the fact that he and Tim were very good friends. Whatever the thing was it was outside their relations to each other. And for the first time in his life Kif had come to set store by his relation with a fellow man.
But on the following night he dreamed vividly. He was lost in a strange waste place. Fear such as he had never known in waking moments, even in the tightest corners, strangled him. Tim was somewhere just out of sight but within hearing. He knew that. But when he called there was no reply. He knew that Barclay was there, quite near, listening. But he did not come. And the agony of his mortal fear was shot through with the new agony of grief at his friend's! desertion. 'Tim!' he cried, 'where are you? Tim' and woke sweating and breathless, his heart hammering.
He lay a long while awake before his nerves were lulled into indifference again, but he had forgotten all about it when he came face to face with the real Barclay.
'Heavens, Kif, you've actually grown!' was his unemotional greeting, but his handshake was eloquent, and the habitual smile was strong in his eyes and round the corners of his mouth. 'Where can we talk in this place?'
'Come into the garden,' Kif said. 'You're very posh,' he remarked as he led the way down a flagged path. Tim was in irreproachable mufti. His nondescript suit was so faultlessly tailored that one forgot it had been a piece of cloth, cut and seamed and pressed and padded; it was an integral part of its wearer. It was impossible that it had ever looked new and it was highly unlikely that it would ever look old. Kif, who had a real appreciation of good clothes, gazed a trifle wistfully at it. Even in the days when his wardrobe consisted of his working clothes—cast-off and colourless—and his Sunday suit—stiff and angular and navy blue and too tight everywhere—he had hankered after sartorial beauty. He would not have known how to produce it, but he recognised it when he saw it.
Pre-war,' said Tim, holding the ends of his coat out between finger and thumb. 'And it's dam' good to be individual again. I feel positively god-like because I can choose a tie. It amazes me that I ever thought choosing anything a bore. I used to stay in bed till the last minute and then grab the first tie that came to hand. Now I have the whole stock out and dawdle over them. It seems that I never appreciated my privileges. You're still a bit lame?'
'Only in the mornings. It wears off. I can dance all right by night-time.'
'Having a good time then? It's a ripping place. It must be glorious in summer.'
Kif agreed. 'There's a fine view at the other side of the plantation. Let's go there.'
The path lay through the wood and ended abruptly at the other side, where a four-barred gate led into a field of pasture. From their feet the country sloped away in a wide valley of grass and plough and rose on the far side to distant moors, bluish in the pale sunlight. Tim sighed appreciatively and propped himself against the gate. Kif pulled himself up to the flat top of the side-post, swung his legs over and sat there. For a little they talked of their experiences since they had parted—'Funny to think that the last time I saw you was in a trench at La Boiselle,' Tim said—and much of Jimmy. It was amazing how vivid Jimmy still was to them. It seemed to them both that at any moment he might appear out of the still spring morning as out of one of his own abstractions to bully, contradict and protect. The atmosphere as they dropped their reminiscent phrases was alive, with his personality, and their hearts were warm at the him.
Presently a little silence fell. 'Now, it's coming,' thought Kif.
'They've recommended me for a commission, Kif.'
Kif's heart turned over So that was it! He thought Tim had definitely given up that.
'Good for you!' he said heartily. 'Good for you!' he repeated, because other words would not come. He turned to find Barclay's eyes watching him unsmilingly. 'It'll be rotten without you,' he added cheerfully.
Barclay was still watching him. Damn it, why didn't he take his eyes away for a moment till a fellow got his breath.
'I haven't taken it yet,' said Tim. 'That's what I came to talk to you about.'
'What are you hesitating about?'
'Well, you know I always said I wouldn't have one. I hated the thought of responsibility. I still hate it. I was born that way. But I hate the thought of going back there as a Tommy even more than that. I'm telling you this because I want you to understand. I can't explain things to my people. They wouldn't understand, and I don't think I want them to. If I take this commission it will be for the most rankly selfish reasons. There isn't anything in me that will make the right kind of leader for the men. I know that quite well because I'm under no delusions about myself. The recommendation has nothing to do with it. They'll recommend anyone who has been at a decent school nowadays, they're so hard up. Taking the chance—because that is what it amounts to—seems to me to be a deliberate going back on the men I've known. As a private I was as good as the next man. As an officer I'd be a wash-out. I don't mean I'd be incompetent. I've seen too much of the business for that. But when it really mattered I'd be one of the no-use kind. You know what I mean. I don't have to tell you. I always knew I'd be no use at the business, and I didn't even bother to think about it when it was suggested before. Now it has been shoved under my nose again, and I've sunk to the level of considering it. And I've told you why—because I'm funking the unpleasantness of being a poor bloody Tommy like the rest of the decent chaps. I've come to you to be bucked up and told that the dam' duckboards won't be half as bad once I'm back in France as they look from here. I don't want to take the commission. I'll regret it if I do. You've got to help me do the decent thing, Kif. Fire away. Hot and strong.'
Kif sat very quiet. He was looking past Barclay at a periwinkle growing at a tree's foot. A strange sad blue, it was, growing there in perpetual shade. He felt as if part of his inside were missing. But there was no question in his mind as to what he was to do. Fine shades of ethics did not exist for him. Tim had the chance of a commission and he would be a fool to refuse it. It was up to him to see that he accepted it.
'I think you're making a song about nothing,' he said. 'I'd have you for my officer any day, and I'm particular enough. You've just got wrong notions with having someone like Heaton so long in—'
/> 'Damn you, Kif,' Barclay broke out, 'I didn't come to hear you say that. I want with all my soul to go back with you. Only the rotten bit of me is funking. I'm drowning and you won't help me.'
'You're nothing of the sort,' said Kif. 'You're only a bit sick on the crossing. Once you're over you'll be as right as rain.'
'I appreciate the metaphor,' said Tim drearily. 'You're a broken reed, Kif, and I thought you were a high tower. No,' he added instantly, 'that's nonsense. I've just been fooling myself, that's all. Everyone's got to do his own deciding. Yes, I shall talk in clichés and be-damned. But I swear if you'd only tipped me the other way I'd have fallen right. It's on your head, or at your door, or any other dam' thing you like. But you've done it.'
Kif grinned. His dark eyes twinkled at his disconsolate friend from the tilted peak of his service-cap. He put out his hand.
'Congratulations, Mr Barclay!'
Tim caught the hand without taking it, and brought it down on the gate, imprisoning it below his while he looked regretfully at the owner.
'You old rotter, Kif,' he said affectionately, 'I thought you'd understand.'
'I understand you'll make a jolly fine general some day.' Kif had adopted many of Barclay's habits of speech.
'Oh, general—yes! That's what I'm afraid of. Being the "general" type. All routine and no imagination. Look what I'd be responsible for!'
'You think too much about your ruddy responsibilities,' said Kif amiably. 'Have you got a watch?'
'A quarter to one.'
'Have to be getting back. Dinner is at one. Why won't you stay? They will give you a feed.'
'No, I must get back to town to-night. I'll have something to eat at the station. Where's Big Ben?' He referred to the loud-ticking gun-metal object that was wont to adorn Kif's wrist. He had bought it for half a crown from a man on whom the bestowal of a gold one by a besotted sweetheart had had a delirious effect.